Amazon Prime Video By The Numbers; Facebook's Fickle Ways

Reuters obtained audience numbers for Amazon’s Prime Video subscription service. According to the internals, by early 2017 Amazon Video had drawn more than 5 million people into the Prime loyalty program, and about 26 million people overall were watching content on the platform. Amazon now spends $5 billion per year on original content, as entertainment has proven a powerful on-boarding ramp to Prime membership and a virtuous cycle of consumer spending. Those video numbers also point to why Amazon keeps its most valuable content ad-free behind a subscription paywall, since it isn’t about recouping ad revenue for the studio investments. It’s about the lifetime value of a Prime subscriber compared to a mere logged-in Amazon shopper. More.

Fickle Friend

Facebook is offering to fund news publishers’ shows for its Watch video hub. But publishers, fed up with Facebook’s tendency to flip-flop on such offers, are proceeding with caution, WSJ reports. Facebook pulled a similar stunt with its Live section, spending $50 million to fund year-long projects for news pubs, and then failing to renew those deals the following season. Still, publishers are willing to take the risk if it means access to Facebook’s huge audience. “I think anytime Facebook is willing to pay, we’re more willing to play,” said a publishing exec. “The problem is that when these pilot programs expire, there is still no clear revenue channel. Then you’re stuck.” More. Related: The chairman of NBC News slammed Facebook, AdAge reports. “You can't have a relationship with them.”

Asleep At The Wheel

Snapchat’s shares sank almost 5% Thursday after pop singer Rihanna called out the app for running a tasteless ad that asked users to decide whether they wanted to “slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown.” Snapchat removed the ad, which ran inside a mobile game on the platform, and chalked it up to an error by its review team, which is supposed to block any content that violates its policy banning“shocking, sensational or disrespectful” content. “We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process,” Snap said in a statement. “We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again.” More on Bloomberg.